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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24138571">Here in the calm after the storm</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/SquaresAreNotCircles/pseuds/SquaresAreNotCircles'>SquaresAreNotCircles</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Hawaii Five-0 (2010)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Danny "Danno" Williams Deserves Nice Things, Established Relationship, Fix-It of Sorts, M/M, Post-Finale, Sharing a Bed, Slice of Life, Steve is not the only one in this partnership with ongoing issues, a cameo role for both white paint and bagels, h50 episode 10.22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-05-12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-05-12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-02 17:49:27</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,573</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24138571</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/SquaresAreNotCircles/pseuds/SquaresAreNotCircles</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>Every morning when Danny wakes up, he expects to find the other side of the bed empty.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Sometimes he does. On those mornings, he tries to ignore the spike in his heartrate and the rising hard feeling in the pit of his stomach, like someone is squeezing his insides too tight, and he gets up as he normally would.</em>
</p><p>Or: Morning routines, minor renovations and feelings. Even when life gets quiet, it doesn’t always get easy.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Steve McGarrett/Danny "Danno" Williams</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>41</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>390</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Here in the calm after the storm</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Because I know I focus on Steve and feelings a lot, but dear lord, does Danny have them, too. </p><p>The title is from <em>Calm after the Storm</em>, a song by The Common Linnets that earned the Netherlands second place in Eurovision in 2014 and that doesn’t necessarily have much to do with this fic (in Steve and Danny’s case, <em>yes</em>, staying is most definitely better than goodbye), but it’s nice anyway.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Every morning when Danny wakes up, he expects to find the other side of the bed empty.</p><p>Sometimes he does. On those mornings, he tries to ignore the spike in his heartrate and the rising hard feeling in the pit of his stomach, like someone is squeezing his insides too tight, and he gets up as he normally would. He collects some clean(-ish, depending on the type of day it is) clothes, goes into the bathroom to relieve himself, maybe grab a quick shower, brush his teeth, get changed and make sure his hair cooperates, and then – and only then – he heads downstairs, where he will find a note from Steve on the kitchen counter. It’ll be next to a full pot of coffee and the <em>BEST DAD</em> mug Steve always puts out for him because it was a present from Grace and Charlie for father’s day and Steve is, fundamentally, a hugely sentimental sap. </p><p>The note will read something like <em>went for a swim</em> with a little smiley face next to it or <em>went for a run</em> with an added promise to get some bagels for breakfast on the way back. This, finally, will allow Danny’s bowels to unclench and will stop the clock on the slowly ticking countdown to panic mode in his brain. He needs that note; he’s glad Steve randomly decided to start leaving those notes. He could, of course, ask Steve to put them on the bed or next to Danny’s phone on the nightstand or stick them to the mirror in the bathroom upstairs and that would make life a whole lot easier and less prone to feeling like the lead in to a panic attack two mornings out of three, but the kicker is that he also can’t ask for that. He just physically <em>can not</em>, because it would mean admitting to something he doesn’t want to deal with.</p><p>He has Steve back. Steve left, Steve came back to him, and everything is just fine. Peachy, really. </p><p>Like that shampoo he got in the mail one time when they sent him the wrong order and that’s still on the little shelf in the shower because it’s free stuff and it would be a waste to throw that out even though he also never actually uses it because it smells so nauseatingly sweet it gives him hives. That’s how peachy it is.</p><p>That is, right up until six months after Steve’s grand return (or five months, sixteen days and something like twenty-one hours, but who’s counting?), when they have a Saturday that is devoid of kids, work or other plans, and Steve says they should really make use of all that rare unoccupied time by giving the bedroom a fresh layer of paint. Danny complains a bit for the form of it and points out that most couples would hole up in the bedroom when left alone for entirely different reasons, but Steve just grins through it and Danny can’t honestly say that it’s a bad idea. He was the one that first asked Steve when those walls were last painted, back when he officially moved from Steve’s couch and friendzone into Steve’s bed and guess-all-those-smug-people-had-a-point zone.</p><p>So they change into some old clothes after breakfast and Steve gets the painting supplies from the garage. Steve doesn’t own any paint that isn’t dry and flaky because it’s been standing there for years, but Danny brought a tin of nearly unused white with him when he was sorting out his stuff, which he now generously donates to the cause. “You can’t donate something to your own bedroom, Danny,” Steve says, which makes Danny feel kind of warm in the old ticker, because it’s still novel to hear Steve say with such confidence that Danny has an irrefutable claim to this place. “That’s just called using it for your own benefit.” </p><p>In response, Danny starts arguing the definition of the verb donate. So far, so good.</p><p>They start by pulling furniture away from the walls, to be covered in drop sheets once it’s all been gathered in the center of the room. They move the bed together, then the wardrobe, and then Steve is already lifting Danny’s nightstand to put it on top of the bed to save some room, and somehow he must tilt it in some strange way because Danny isn’t really paying attention but suddenly Steve has set it down again to close the bottom drawer, which seems to have fallen open. </p><p>It’s like those moments in movies just before disaster strikes: Danny looks over to see Steve kneeling in front of the drawer, and he just catches the moment Steve’s expression goes from mildly annoyed at his own goof to surprised at what he’s accidentally found. “Hey,” he says, and reaches into the drawer, and Danny is next to him in an instant.</p><p>He very nearly kicks the drawer shut. He realizes just in time that not only would that make things worse for him anyway, but Steve’s hand is also still inside of it. “That’s, uh-” Danny tries, but he doesn’t really know what it is, or at least not what he wants to say it is. </p><p>Steve has made a grab and come up with a handful of notes with his own writing scrawled all over them. He looks maybe a touch flattered at first, but then his expression becomes mostly too confused to have much of any other type of response. “You’ve been saving these?” Steve looks up, which means that Danny is kind of forced to take part in this conversation. He feels caught. He did not consent to being put on the spot for his sentimental stupidity on a random Saturday with absolutely zero heads up.</p><p>“I like them,” he says, nonchalantly. Something close to nonchalantly. Okay, not nonchalantly at all.</p><p>Steve uses the corner of the cursed nightstand as an aid while getting to his feet, eyes going from Danny back to being glued to the notes in his hands. “This one just says <em>brb</em>.”</p><p>“They can’t all be literary masterpieces.” Danny is getting a little annoyed now, despite how mortified he still feels. That’s Steve’s <em>brb</em>. Steve can’t dunk on Danny for his own choice of lingo.</p><p>Steve shuffles through a few more and then stops, squinting at the paper. “I think I spelled my own name wrong in this one.”</p><p>Danny snatches it from his fingers. The sign off really does look like <em>Steva</em> more than anything else. “You just have terrible handwriting.”</p><p>Steve hands over the rest of the stack of notes in a way that is suspiciously docile. “I really need to work on that, huh?”</p><p>“You should,” Danny says. He busies himself with putting all the notes in the neatest stack they can be, improving on Steve’s half-assed attempt at gathering the messy pile together. They’re not all from the same block of post-its, and a couple are just torn-off scraps of paper when there was apparently nothing else at hand, but Danny keeps trying to square them up anyway. “Can’t have people thinking a Navy SEAL can’t spell. You’d bring down dishonor on the entire United States military-industrial complex.”</p><p>Steve doesn’t take the bait. He watches Danny like he’s actually looking, which he does a lot, but it’s not usually this unnerving. “Danny,” he says, more gently than he should.</p><p>“Shut up,” Danny snaps.</p><p>Of course that’s when regular boneheaded Steve returns. “No. Not until you tell me what this is about.”</p><p>Danny stops fiddling with the notes. He jams them back in the drawer, slams it shut, and does his very best to sit down on the bed angrily. It mostly means he bounces a little.</p><p>Steve sits down next to him less bouncily.</p><p>Danny balls his hands to fists and flexes them, watching his fingers work. He moisturizes regularly, but his skin is not as young and smooth as it used to be. He’s getting too old and wrinkly to pull this shit on himself.</p><p>“It’s not like it’s a bad thing,” Steve says. That’s the best and worst part about having an incorrigible softie for a life partner: if Danny stays quiet and surly for long enough, Steve will eventually give in and try to bridge the gap first. “I guess it’s kinda cute in a way, but they’re not even good notes. Why would you-”</p><p>“They’re pieces of you,” Danny says, because if he’s going to keep sabotaging his own life like he always has, he might as well find new and inventive ways of doing it. Being entirely open and honest with his romantic partners is certainly a horse he never bet on too much. “I’m hanging on to them just in case.”</p><p>“In case of what?” Steve sounds a little more freaked than Danny expected, which starts to make sense when Steve continues. “I die?”</p><p>“Hey!” Danny barks. He’s freaked too now. “We’re not even talking about that, okay? It’s in case you leave.” In the end, with Steve escalating the possibilities to that point that Danny won’t ever let himself go to because he knows that way lies a deep, dark pit filled with resentment at the world for something that hasn’t even happened yet, it’s pretty easy to admit. </p><p>It’s less easy to watch an awful kind of understanding dawn on Steve’s face. “I’m not leaving.”</p><p>Danny puts his hands next to his thighs and feels their bedspread under his palms. They’re on Steve’s side of the bed, but his own would only be accessible right now by rolling across the mattress, because the wardrobe is blocking any normal way of getting there. He stays right where he is. “I know that,” he tells Steve. He does. He thinks he does. “But do I? I didn’t think you would leave, before. You did it anyway.” </p><p>The moment it’s out, he regrets it. It’s too honest, and he’s not even sure where he’s taking it. There are <em>reasons</em> why little white lies used to be his solution to every bump in the road when it comes to relationships.</p><p>“I’m not going to apologize for that,” Steve says. He sounds calm, but bordering on offended. This, exactly this, is the main reason. “I had to.”</p><p>Danny presses his tongue against the back of his teeth and makes sure to also keep a very careful lid on his desire to makes this easy and just start a fight. “I get that,” he says, because he needs Steve to know that, and because he does get it, even while at the same time deep down he’ll never stop wishing he could have been the magic cure Steve needed to feel okay again. Alas, that’s not how human emotions work outside of romance novels. He learned that lesson the hard way with Rachel half a dozen times over. </p><p>Steve is watching him warily, waiting.</p><p>Giving up and trying to change the subject sounds so very attractive right now, but Danny knows he’d be doing both of them a disservice. “But I can’t stop worrying that you’re going to have to, again.”</p><p>Steve makes a noise, hurt and angry, and for a moment, Danny thinks he’s going to get up and stalk out of the room. That’d be ironic. Then Steve breathes in and out hard, plants his hand down right next to Danny’s on the bed, and instead says, “This is that thing where you’re constantly afraid any good thing you have is going to end, isn’t it?”</p><p>Danny’s first instinct is to challenge Steve on calling himself a good thing, but it’s not the time and he’s not in the mood. “Probably.”</p><p>“Well, you know what? It is.” Steve waits until Danny looks at him, unsure he actually just heard the entirely dickish thing he thinks he heard, before continuing. “It is going to end, because everything does, but it’s not going to be me that ends it. I’ve got my head on straight and I know what I want, Danny. I’m not even a little confused. I’m not leaving until something forces me to.”</p><p>Steve keeps watching him in a weird way, like he’s bracing for something, and Danny can guess at what Steve is worried about getting in response. Suddenly, Danny is the one balancing on the edge of affronted. “Don’t look at me that way. Are you stupid? I’m not gonna be that something.”</p><p>“Right,” Steve says forcefully. “See? We’re thinking the same thing.”</p><p>Danny is looking, but all he really sees is Steve, stubborn and maintaining eye contact like he’s somewhat desperately willing Danny to buy what he’s selling. Danny nods. “Okay.”</p><p>“Okay,” Steve echoes.</p><p>They both look away, and they sit there for a moment of silence. Danny feels more secure than he has in a while as he goes back over what they essentially just promised each other. It’s not anything new, but they rarely even approach putting these unspoken vows into serious words. “Hey,” he says, “do you realize we just got even more kinda married than we already were?”</p><p>Steve throws his eyes heavenward and gets up. “That’s impossible, and you can ask anyone we know. Come help me with this.”</p><p>Together, they lift the nightstand onto the bed without spilling any more secrets.</p><p>*</p><p>Paint fumes don’t make for a very healthy or comfortable sleeping environment, which is why the next morning, Danny wakes up in the bed in the guestroom. Junior stays at Tani’s place more often than not these days anyway and Danny has some fairly recent experience in being open to anything when it comes to choosing places to crash. Way too familiar couches and hotel rooms in Washington come to mind.</p><p>His heart shakes far less than it used to when he rolls over and finds the other half of the bed empty, but he does get jumpscared by something very close to his face fluttering down and landing on his hand. Upon inspection, it’s not a form of imminent danger, but a sticky yellow post-it note, covered in Steve’s handwriting on both sides. It must have been stuck to his forehead, so he resolves to have a very serious breakfast conversation with Steve about respecting your partner even when he’s asleep.</p><p><em>Hey D,</em> says the note, when Danny gets over himself enough to get curious and read it, which is about five seconds later. <em>Went for a run. I love you. You’re the best person I’ve ever known. I’ll be back (always, but today in ~90 minutes). Will bring you that terrible cinnamon raisin bagel you like so much. I hope you save this one, because at least it’s good. Still love you. - Steve.</em> </p><p>Danny sits in bed for another moment, feeling grateful beyond measure both to have Steve with him in life and for Steve’s current absence, so he won’t see Danny fight not to tear up over something this stupid. He only just woke up. It’s not fair to assault him with these kinds of common but huge feelings recorded in black and yellow on his own face.</p><p>He gets up, traps the note under Junior’s alarm clock so it will stay nice and flat and won’t go anywhere until the drawer in Danny’s nightstand in the other room isn’t hidden under a layer of plastic anymore, and starts his morning routine, for once without an ounce of worry to weigh him down.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Thank you for reading!! ❤ If you feel like leaving a comment, that would be very cool. Stay safe, be kind, and consider writing yourself some post-it love notes because you deserve them.</p><p>I’m on Tumblr as <a href="https://itwoodbeprefect.tumblr.com">itwoodbeprefect</a>, or with my exclusively H50 (and mostly McDanno) sideblog as <a href="https://five-wow.tumblr.com">five-wow</a>.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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